Authentication system

Abstract

An authentication system includes a mail server ( 11 ) which receives an electronic mail delivered from a customer's machine tool ( 20 ), an operation state database ( 12 ) which stores operation state data extracted from the received electronic mail, a web server ( 13 ) which transmits specific operation state data to a customer's user PC ( 21 ) from the operation state database ( 12 ), a general identification database ( 14 ) in which general user IDs and passwords for identification of customers and machine codes of customers' machine tools ( 20 ) associated with the general user IDs are registered, a private server ( 15 ) which is accessible only by a service center PC ( 17 ) via a virtual private network, and a special identification database ( 16 ) in which special user identification data for identification of a service person and machine codes of all the customers' machine tools associated with a special user ID are registered.

1 . An authentication system comprising: 
 a general identification database in which general user identification data entities for identification of authentic general users and codes associated with the general user identification data entities are registered for the respective general users;    an information database which stores predetermined information for the respective codes;    a general server which is accessible via a network;    a private server which is accessible only by an authentic special user; and    a special identification database in which special user identification data for identification of the authentic special user and codes associated with some or all of the general user identification data entities are registered, the codes being also associated with the special user identification data;    wherein, if identification data inputted by a general user for access to the general server matches any of the user identification data entities registered in the general user identification database, the inputting general user is permitted to acquire information for a code associated with the matched general user identification data entity from the information stored in the information database;    wherein, if identification data inputted by the special user for access to the private server matches the special user identification data registered in the special user identification database, the inputting special user is permitted to acquire information for the codes associated with the special user identification data from the information stored in the information database.    
   
   
       2 . An authentication system as set forth in  claim 1 , 
 wherein the codes associated with all the general user identification data entities are registered in association with the special user identification data in the special identification database,    wherein, when a new code is registered in the general identification database, the new code is also registered in association with the special user identification data in the special identification database.